A world of advertising possibilities

Paul Moran is back with another indispensable guide to getting your business recognised by the right audience.

As a business, knowing where to allocate your marketing efforts can be quite challenging. Questions about which tactics work best, or how to make your marketing budget stretch further, are of constant concern. In reality, each advertising avenue offers unique opportunities for you to find new customers and strengthen current relationships. Understanding their specific uses simplifies decision-making. In this article, I want to explore three different advertising mediums that can help to kickstart your marketing success straight away. Let’s dive right in!

DIGITAL BANNERS

Digital banners are ads displayed on a website to visually attract attention. Many people think of digital banners as old hat, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Data shows that the humble banner is still extremely effective in delivering tangible results for your business at a very cost-effective price. Placing your banners on the most applicable website is essential. You want to make sure your ad is seen by your target market daily. Digital banners target the higher end of the sales funnel, which means getting your advertising in front of businesses and people who are not directly searching for your service or product but will search at some stage in the future. Let’s look at the benefits:

• Reputation 

When your advert is centred on an applicable website, businesses and people will naturally associate your brand with that website on a subconscious level. This can work both ways. You need to make sure that the website is a credible one, respected by your audience, and one where your audience spends time. Reputation and trustworthiness are crucial when somebody is deciding whether to buy from your business, so this is a very high selling point of the digital banner. 

• It won’t break the bank

One of the reasons businesses love digital banners is that they produce a high yield for little investment. The medium is all digital, which means that there are no printing costs, and no postage costs or other associated costs. If you don’t have a large budget, digital banners are the perfect choice to stretch your cash. However, you will have to create the digital banner to the correct specification. There are graphic agencies who can help with this, or you can create your own through various software such as Adobe Photoshop.

• Compliments your other marketing efforts

We see and hear advertisements all day. Radio is the medium of sound. TV is visual and newspapers both text and image. Social media works on social proof, which is appealing for advertisers. Digital banners complete the circle as they focus on your advert being repeatedly placed in front of your audience at their time of browsing. An analogy is that your visual advert is being placed at a busy crossroads where your audience is passing through daily.

Quick tip 

Less text is better, giving more space to the visual. Focus on making the image eye-catching using your brand colours. Lastly, make sure to constantly test and update the visual over time to keep it fresh and to see what graphics are yielding higher results. 

E-NEWSLETTERS

An electronic newsletter is an email that is sent out to a subscribed audience list. Email remains one of the most used means of communication throughout the entire world. Everybody will check their email but not everybody will check their social media. Therefore, an e-newsletter is a brilliant marketing idea to implement. Unlike the Digital banner, it is further down the sales funnel because a relationship has already been established. The clients are already aware of your brand. Newsletters will strengthen this relationship. Below are the key benefits of the e-newsletter:

• Connect on a personal level 

A newsletter allows you to speak directly to your customers. You can share important information with your customer with no intermediary. For example, this could range from news pieces, tips, stories, or simply a mark of gratitude. Newsletters are not after the hard sell, your audience is already invested in your business, or they wouldn’t have subscribed in the first place. Instead, it’s a chance to establish trust with your existing customer base. 

• Steer people back to your website

Each newsletter will have various goals depending on the company. One goal is to remind and drive people back to your website. One must then ask why we desire this particular action? From your website, a customer may call your phone, book a service or buy certain products online.

They’ve opened the newsletter in their inbox and are constantly getting value from you. Therefore, the customer will feel more comfortable taking action with you, since they’ve gotten to know your business over a period of time. Social media also operates in a similar fashion.

Quick tip 

Set up a newsletter sign-up email on your website and have your customers subscribe. Send newsletters consistently to your audience, avoid any hard-selling, and always have an option to easily unsubscribe visible at the bottom. Also, look around to partner up with a company that already has a thriving newsletter, so you can tap into their network and audience.

PRINT ADVERTS 

Compared to the two advertising avenues above, print advertising has been around much longer and continues to be an effective method to reach new and existing customers. It has remained an important medium of communication for good reason. Print out-performs digital in many areas. Print adverts operate on the top of the sales funnel, or middle of the funnel depending on where they are placed. There are many benefits to running a print advertising campaign. I will focus on the 2 key ones below:

• Print is less intrusive 

When we read through a newspaper or magazine, the relevant articles are blended with ads beside them. The ads are usually in a high-definition format that looks beautiful to the eye and can be admired. Although digital banners can appear nice, they will not catch the eye with the beautiful colours, creativity, and slickness of print. Print ads are memorable and can stay with the reader for some time. People usually relax with magazines at a more leisurely pace and don’t scroll manically through the information as they do on computers or mobile devices.

• Good shelf life 

Newspapers and Magazines are distributed to various types of venues, such as shops, businesses, offices, and waiting rooms. The shelf life of print is much longer than digital, as they stay at these locations for longer. Not only that, but the items are shared, traded, and swapped amongst the population. They continue to be in circulation even after the season may be long over. Digital ads are advertised for a set period, before being completely removed. Better shelf life means your target market’s eyes are on your business long after you’ve paid the initial cost of the ad. 

Quick tip

Place your ad in front of a niche audience. Don’t try to target everybody or you’ll drain your budget on casting too wide a net. Focus on your ad being less cluttered and featuring more white space. This will make it stand out and look appealing. Although it may seem obvious, make sure your contact information is clear. Promote what makes your business unique. 

Paul Moran is an Account Executive for Horticulture Connected. He has previously worked in Digital Sales & Marketing within the Tech sector and holds an MSc in Strategic Management & Planning from UCD Michael Smurfit Business School. He has a passion for growing some of his own food. He can be contacted at paul@horticulture.ie